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China’s Modern Authoritarianism
The Communist Party’s ultimate goal is to stay in power, not to liberalize.[Wall Street Journal Asia]
By PERRY LINK and JOSHUA KURLANTZICK
In
the wake of the 1989 crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in Beijing’s
Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party seemed morally bankrupt.
Average Chinese complained bitterly about graft and special privileges
reserved for the Party’s elite, and few believed the Party’s
sloganeering about socialism when officials practiced ruthless
capitalism. The army, too, had lost face: The Tiananmen killings showed
that the “people’s army” could open fire on the people themselves. The
urban economy seemed locked within an inefficient and corrupt iron
framework of the old work-unit system. No one either inside or outside
China saw the country’s authoritarian system as a model to follow.
Twenty years later, the Chinese Communist Party has built a new
popularity by delivering staggering economic growth and cultivating a
revived — and potentially dangerous — Han Chinese nationalism.
China’s material successes, as seen in its gleaming city skylines and
piles of foreign currency holdings, suggest the government’s top
priority is economic growth. The increasing socioeconomic diversity in
Chinese society suggests that the regime seeks liberalization and might
one day throw open its political system.
These are dangerous misconceptions. The Party’s top priority remains
what it has always been: the maintenance of absolute political power.
Economic growth has not sparked democratic change, as one-party rule
persists. Through a sophisticated adaptation of its system — including
leveraging the market to maintain political control — China’s
Communist Party has modernized its authoritarianism to fit the times.
The Party has utilized a sophisticated strategy to maintain control
of its populace. While growing the economy, it has kept the majority of
wealth in the hands of an elite class of business leaders, many of whom
have willingly accepted authoritarian rule in exchange for getting
rich. Far from forming a middle class that might challenge authority,
these groups now have reason to join their rulers in repressing
“instability” among the people. Meanwhile, the Party has also
deliberately stoked and shaped Chinese nationalism, and many inside
China now feel pride in the government’s model of authoritarian
development, especially as the model of liberal capitalism staggers in
the wake of the global financial crisis.
Despite its tailored suits and suave diplomats, the Party also
maintains a key tool in inducing popular obedience that dates to Mao’s
era, a technique called “thoughtwork.” This ideological enforcement
today operates more subtly than in the past, but it is still highly
effective. It is covert — accomplished, for example, through
confidential telephone calls to newspaper editors, rather than in
banner newspaper headlines. And it is targeted: Whereas Mao Zedong-era
campaigns aimed to transform society and even human nature, thoughtwork
today focuses on political issues that are vital to the Party’s rule,
and lets the rest go.
The effects of thoughtwork are far reaching. The Party’s activities
include outright censorship, but much of the rest of thoughtwork
entails the active cultivation of views that the government favors
among the media, businesspeople and other opinion leaders in Chinese
society. This assertive side of thoughtwork has become especially
important in recent years. Many Chinese still harbor complaints about
the government’s management of the economy, the environment and the
country’s political system. Particularly in rural areas, it is easy to
find people furious at corruption, land grabs, worker exploitation, the
wealth gap and thuggish repression.
But thoughtwork counters these complaints in two ways. First, the
Party encourages the belief that the central leadership remains pure
and all of the problems are due to corrupt or uninformed local
officials. Second, the Party simply distracts its citizens. Demands for
clean air, for instance, are answered with 52 Olympic gold medals and
massive propaganda about the Games. Displaced homeowners are encouraged
to worry about the Dalai Lama “splitting the motherland.”
The Party’s adaptive methods of disruption and distraction have
helped maintain control during a period of rapid change, suggesting a
durable domestic model of authoritarian governance. Even more
worryingly, the government is translating its success at home into
success abroad, where the “China model” of authoritarian capitalism is
gaining currency. Governments from Syria to Vietnam have sung its
praises.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Authoritarian elites seek
formulas for maintaining their power while also growing their
economies. In poor developing countries, average citizens are
vulnerable to this propaganda, which China spreads by extending aid and
investment with no human rights strings, running training programs in
China for foreign officials and students, opening cultural centers such
as Confucius Institutes within foreign universities, and offering
diplomatic cover to repressive regimes at the United Nations and
elsewhere.
China has extended its hand of friendship to many different types of
nations, from harsh regimes — including those of Sudan, Burma,
Uzbekistan, North Korea and Zimbabwe — whose leaders are seeking only
financial assistance and protection at the U.N. and other international
bodies, to a diverse group of developing countries across Asia, Latin
America and Africa that seek economic, political and cultural ties to
China. The scale of this effort is difficult to calculate. For example,
China trains at least 1,000 Central Asian judicial and police officials
annually, most of whom could be classified as working in antidemocratic
enterprises. Over the long term, Beijing plans to step up its training
programs for African officials. The scope of China’s broader aid
programs is similarly difficult to quantify, but the World Bank
estimates that China is now the largest lender to African nations.
The China model, although a definite threat to democratic values, is
no juggernaut. Its appeal abroad will depend in large part on how the
Chinese economy weathers the global downturn, and how any stumbles it
might encounter are perceived in the developing world. Back at home,
the Party is more frightened of its own citizenry than most outside
observers realize. Chinese citizens are increasingly aware of their
constitutional rights; a phenomenon that does not fit well with
authoritarianism. The Party may win the affection of foreign elites,
but still faces dissent at home from local nongovernmental
organizations, civil society and elements of the media.
Since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, China’s leadership has
modernized the country’s economy but also its authoritarianism. And
because the system’s flaws are as glaring as its resilience, its
challenge to democracy is a crisis in the original sense of the word —
the course of events could turn either way.
–Mr. Link co-edited “The Tiananmen Papers”
(PublicAffairs, 2001) and holds the Chancellorial Chair for Teaching
Across Disciplines at the University of California at Riverside. Mr.
Kurlantzick is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment’s China
Program. This article is adapted from a forthcoming essay, “Undermining
Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians” (Freedom House, Radio Free Asia
and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty).
